Asleep star verses collect in me

 Awake     I fashion sprigs of poems but
thieving wakefulness
steals first prize images

 
             Asleep a star cavalcades melodies
            I traverse his notes
            pulled along like a kid at a carnival
            look at every ride
            every sweet taste
            every hidden curtain
            every strange phenomenon

 
Awake I search for metaphors
to describe his dazzling dream song

 
            Asleep he teaches me a new language
            sky alphabet
            a blinking Morse code

 
Awake I fashion a disappointing sonnet
search for words that rhyme with star…

 
            Asleep     ask him why he glitters

 
Awake remember not his answer
but could swear I glistened
throbbing in his arms

 
            Asleep I am Aphrodite looking into his eyes

 
Awake I see polished darkness between us

 
            Asleep     I am moved by his closeness

 
Awake      bewildered by his distance
I keep night vigil at framed window
with “glittering” question
my expectant heart beats
eyes fix on the pulsing sky
I wait and wait and wait
for his answer

Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.